Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)
Everybody has their own way of coping with grief and honoring the dead, so in ‘Inked’, Dylan decides to get a tattoo with her dad’s ashes mixed in the ink. The experience takes a terrifying turn when something sinister awakens in her skin right after she gets inked!
Written and directed by Kelsey Bollig, the short horror film stars Kaikane as Dylan, a young woman mourning her father, who died in prison.
At under 15 minutes, ‘Inked’ opens with a chilling news broadcast about a serial killer before cutting to Dylan, and of course, you can’t help but wonder if the killer was her father. The clues, however, suggest otherwise.
Soon, we see Dylan downing swigs of alcohol while her tattooist friend Bruno (Chris Cortez) fulfills her unusual request: blending the ink with ashes. Bathed in eerie red-toned lighting, her home radiates a creeping unease even before the paranormal activity begins.
Eerie shadows, ghostly entities, body horror, creepy crawlies… director Kelsey Bollig packs a variety of horror elements into this short film, engagingly shouldered by the stunning Kaikane as the tormented Dylan.
‘Inked’ might not spine-chilling horrifying or disturbingly scary, but delivers some disturbing moments, with an interesting climactic twist. Haunted by her own body, under her own roof, Dylan begins to understand what goes wrong, but a little too late!
If you are a horror fan with 15 minutes to spare, check this indie film out on your next break
‘Inked’ is available on Alter’s YouTube. It’s also embedded below.